The present invention is related to a Graphical User Interface (GUI) and, in particular, a method for graphically displaying on a computer screen a plurality of items forming a menu, such that a menu item representing a particular function operated on by a user is clearly visible on the screen.
Pull-down menus are well known in the art and are possibly one of the most common tools in the Graphical User Interface. From a pull-down menu, a user can issue a computer command, initiate an action, set parameters for a particular operation, etc.
Since this pull-down menu structure is so popular, occasionally the entire viewing screen is not sufficient to display all of the menu options, i.e., items, available to the user. This is particularly true if each of the menu items occupies a large area on the screen to provide the user with a readable, easy to understand format. In this case, the user must scroll the display--using an input device--past the current view, either in the vertical or horizontal direction, to get more viewing area such that the additional items can be seen. This scrolling operation may be inconvenient and time consuming for the user.
Furthermore, traditional pull-down menus feature cascading menus which are typically sub-menus of the main menu pertaining to a particular item within the main menu. Each sub-menu can have several of its own sub-menus, and so on. Obviously, there can be many levels of these sub-menus, each relating to an item in the "parent" menu. In this case, the viewing area on the screen may not be sufficient to provide sufficient space for each item while allowing the user to comprehend its contents. Scrolling the sub-menus off the screen presents difficulties in addition to the ones as mentioned above, as the user may "lose" track of where he or she is in the overall scheme of things (i.e., which item this particular sub-menu is remotely related to).
A need, therefore, exists for an invention to overcome the above disadvantages of the current menu structure.